Science and Technology Studies Event: Patrick McCray, History of Technology and STS, UCSBA lecture to discuss his book The Visioneers: How a Group of Elite Scientists Pursued Space Colonies, Nanotechnologies, and a Limitless Future

ABSTRACTThe Visioneers follows the careers of two inventive individuals who imagined, designed, and advocated radical new exploratory technologies. With a narrative starting in the early 1970s, it explores how and why a select group of scientists and engineers developed expansive visions of a future radically improved by space colonies and nanotechnologies. The Visioneers is widely acclaimed, and has won the 2012 Eugene M. Emme Astronautical Literature Award from the American Astronautical Society and, most recently, the 2014 Watson Davis and Helen Miles Davis Prize from the History of Science Society - a prize that honors books in the history of science directed to a wide public, including undergraduate instruction.

BIOGRAPHYW. Patrick McCray is Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he is Co-Principal Investigator for the NSF-funded Center for Nanotechnology in Society. He is the author of numerous books and articles on the history of science and technology, including path-breaking studies of nanotechnology, space exploration, nuclear fusion, and the iPod. McCray is a fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and will be the Lindbergh Chair at the Smithsonian’s National Air & Space Museum in 2015-2016.